Notebook from Finland - Arms vigil!

When the Finnish round starts on Friday, it will be the reward for a week of intense work by all the teams involved. Among professionals and amateurs, these last few days have been taken advantage of so that everything is ready for departure.

Published on 30/09/2021 à 14:50

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The Ford Focus RS prepared for reconnaissance by Gus Greensmith and Adrien Fourmaux. © Loïc Rocci

Tenth round of the championship, rally of Finland will start Friday morning with the shakedown. However, the teams arrived last week and since then they have been fine-tuning their installation. The big structure Hyundai which is the one located just on the edge of the banks of Lake Päijänne, is the one which required the most time to be built while M-Sport finished setting up his tents Tuesday afternoon.

While some of the English mechanics hung the igloos together without forgetting the protection against the rain, others took advantage of several beautiful days to restore the reconnaissance cars to their original condition. The two Focus RSAdrien fourmaux and Gus Greensmith were carefully observed before accommodating new shock absorbers, the old ones having suffered on the Greek roads. Once the space was defined and equipped with everything that will be useful during the event, the Rally1s were installed on jack stands.

For several hours, they were inspected again then they received the latest developments, the final set ups defined during the tests. If the excitement reigned among Toyota, Hyundai and M-Sport, there was also no lack of activity within the private teams.

Busy amateurs

Nikolay Gryazin's Polo R5

With the Paviljonki complex, a sort of immense exhibition center with several giant halls, the Rally of Finland has always had one of the best sites to host a meeting of the WRC. These gigantic hangars, however, sound very empty when there are only around thirty competitors inside. Arriving later, private structures have no shortage of space this year!

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The process observed among the pros is repeated with the installation of trucks, tarpaulins, tents and tool boxes. The Finns from Print Sport Racing have one of the most impressive installations in the fleet with five Rally2s (3 Polo and 2 Fabia) for drivers who will play the leading roles in WRC 2. Teemu Suninen will in fact discover the Volkswagen while Nikolay Gryazin will aim for a good result.

The Russian competed in a rally in Finland last week (the Kokkolan Ralli) and his car was completely serviced before the world round. Almost completely dismantled, it gradually received new parts to be ready for shakedown on Friday morning.